As manager of Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson became well known for bringing youth players into the first team. This is a subtle and underrated skill for managers of all varieties. Given its vital importance for long-term success, I thought I would wrap up my examination of Managing My Life by taking a closer look at this particular aspect of his management.
One of the great pleasures of working with the young or inexperienced is how their accomplishments in a given moment can often match those of their better-established colleagues. This challenges the manager to help them establish consistency so that these results can be routinely replicated without relying on an unsustainable effort or inconsistent process. A manager can help accelerate this process by protecting them from overexposure and ensuring that setbacks are quickly overcome. An important step toward establishing consistency is instilling the importance of practice. The manager should teach the team that even the most exceptional creators almost always opt for simple learned actions ahead of demonstrating their extraordinary talent at every turn. The creative act may be personally satisfying but contributors are defined only by how they help the team. Therefore, learning the importance of deliberate practice is a vital step in anyone’s development. The manager’s role in this process is to devise a program that allows for a sustainable way for young people to learn these core skills without discouraging or smothering their natural creative instincts.
Off the field, the manager’s role with youth is to serve as a guide and a mentor. Young people need help to recognize when their priorities become different from those of good friends or family. In the same way that a serious athlete cannot indulge in excessive food or drink as their carousing friends do, a young professional must be wary about work decisions that are based on factors that apply better to peers on different career trajectories. Managers can also help their young charges learn how to recognize an empty promise of instant success by instilling a belief that success is more about how people respond to opportunities rather than a question of sitting in the right seat at the outset of a meticulously planned journey.
As a team develops and its members acquire real skills and honest experience, managers must know how to shift the emphasis of their approach. Instead of finding ways to encourage effort and instill confidence, a manager of a skilled or experienced team should emphasize strengths and look for ways to exploit them for the team’s benefit. At this stage, managers must remember not only to help those in their teams but also peers who are new to the managerial field. Perhaps the most important lesson is that managers are never sacked solely for incompetence and that a willingness to die on every hill makes for the most vulnerable manager. The most valuable mentor for a new manager is someone who serves constant reminders that a manager who can learn to work with friend and foe alike will always live to manage another day. If this skill is not learned early on, the young manger is doomed to learn the importance of this skill the hard way.
